settling
by BiblioMatsuri
Summary: Settling down, settling in, settling for less, settling on plans. And so it goes. Future-fic, speculation, oneshot.


settling

It's common knowledge that Amity Park's days have been given over to the dead. Why should its nights be any different?

Most nights are loud with the crashing and ringing of far-off battles, creatures from beyond this reality fighting over one small patch of land and life (because its keeper will not let them pass beyond it).

Some nights, though, nothing comes through. No one is using his friends as bait or flesh-puppets, no enemy is holding knives to their throats. No one is dying, unavenged and unfulfilled, and rising as a twisted specter.

The dead are unquiet in Amity Park.

These nights are for rest, for him and his loved ones. He will slip from his bedroom window silent as a shadow and drift among the air-currents high above his city. He watches the lights of the stars above, the lights of the city below, the drift and roar of the universe in microcosm. For one night, he can be at peace.

For the other nights, he goes to his friends. They play games, pretend-play and make-believe that they are all still young.

_We've all changed._

Tucker has changed the least, inside and out. He is taller than he'd been in high school, but no taller than average. Still no muscle, and a paunch is starting to bubble over his waistband. He still wears the same red beret, faded and worn and well-washed. He'll wear it until it falls to pieces.

Come morning, he'll curse out his alarm for not waking him, curse out Danny for blowing it up (they cost money, you jerk!) and curse out city traffic on his way to work. It's a software development firm, and the best thing he can say about it is that all of his coworkers are almost as big tech-heads as he is. They'd have to be, to put up with three all-nighters in a row before the big launch on Friday.

The second-best thing is that no one cares if he comes in wearing a week's worth of stubble, an anime T-shirt and cargo pants, as long as he doesn't get crumbs on the computers. It's almost enough that he can pretend he actually likes being here, shackled to the screen. He loves technology, but he loves innovation even more, and there's no room for that here.

His latest project is officially an image editing program. Strictly off-the-record, he's been using company computers to keep tabs on Masters' projects since he started. Who's a genius? Tucker's a genius, oh yeah.

He still hits on all the girls (up until they say no, because women are scary). He's awesome, he knows it, but he's not stupid. He's one not-very-big fish in a small pond, and he'll never be ready for the big leagues at this rate.

He really really really wishes Danny would stop playing nice already. It's hard following the guy's lead when he's too scared to lead.

_Man, growing up sucks. Great perks, though._

Sam has changed; they'd say conformed and assimilated if they didn't know better. Her whimsical little ponytail is impractical now, and her hair is pinned up in a bun every morning before work. She doesn't take days off.

She wears neat pressed suits in black, charcoal grey and navy blue, dark sober colors for a sober businesswoman. (She went from clothing firm to designer to manufacturer for months to find clothing that was ethically sourced, ethically made. She can't stop the sweatshops, can't kill the disease by treating the symptoms, but she's not going to give them her money.

Eventually, she just decided to make her own. More room for hidden weapons that way.)

She sweeps into the meeting room, all five foot one and 110 pounds, all of it bone and muscle. She's a hippy-dippy fitness freak, and the tabloids can go on about it all they want. After the nineteenth-or-so time her workday was interrupted by a ghost attack, which was in turn interrupted by her aim with the newest model of Fenton Wrist Ray discreetly disguised as a shiny wristwatch, her employees have learned not to gossip about it where she can hear them.

She knows everything her employees say about her anyway. Bless Tucker and his sneaky little listening devices. (She'll kick his ass and rat him out to the Fenton siblings if she ever finds one in the ladies' room, though.)

The funny thing, though, is that for all her family's money she isn't the big cheese at M-Corp. No no no, let the fat old men and money sharks on the board take the blame when it turns out they've been taking bribes under the table from Vlad Co. Not her problem, she's just one of the PR girls. Not her fault, she's got nothing to do with it.

When she goes home, back home to her family even though she's thirty-one going on eighty, she'll ditch the suit and go right back out for the evening patrol.

_Duty is a burden I can't put down. Duty is power, so why would I want to?_

Danny has changed the most and the least. He has his father's height, his mother's grace, his father's eyes and his mother's gentle smile; all reassurance and quiet happiness until the (metaphorical) claws come out.

He's settled now, mostly, fallen into his place in his quiet little city on the edge of nowhere.

Amity Park is a nice place to live, mostly, because he makes it and keeps it like that.

He gets up in the morning, or the afternoon, or the middle of the night. The time of day doesn't matter much anymore. He's starting not to care about what time of the year it is either. (The Ghost Zone is eternal and unchanging, an endless pool draining out into the human world drop by drop, green draining into his veins and arteries drop by drop.)

He wears black or gray or blue, shadow colors that blend into the crowds and the spaces between buildings and hide him from enemy eyes as well as invisibility ever has.

Vlad isn't the mayor now, thank any deity that isn't a complete jackass, because the town charter won't let him take any more terms in a row. (Too little too late, the damage is done, the fruitloop's slimy fingerprints are everywhere and his name is written into the walls. No more.)

The streets are not his, the buildings are not his – he has not built them, they are not his responsibility. He has too many as it is. The people, their wounds and celebrations, their stories like the flicker-flash of a Polaroid camera going off, they are not his – they are themselves and their mistakes are their own problems. (Freakshow aside, human problems are not his problem.)

He didn't make the mess, he's not cleaning it up; he's the one who opened the Portal, and anything that comes through is- not his _fault_, intentions matter (not as much as actions) and he hadn't meant to crack the world open, but he has and he did and he's dealing with it. Whatever anyone says, it was his choice (even if he can't remember when he made it).

It's not a job, and it was never a choice, not since he became himself. So he does odd jobs when he can, to pass the time and pay his bills, and lets the city's time go on without him. In the long run, it's safer that way. In the short term, it makes him want to scream and tear his hair out, except he can't because the latter's a sign of weakness and the former's a weapon and how messed up is his life that his freaking _voice_ is a WMD?

So he doesn't think about it, he just stops what he's doing to stop the ghosts causing trouble in Amity Park. He'll clean up the mess as Phantom and fix the damage done as Fenton, every day and most nights because someone has to, because he can and that's all the reason he's ever needed.

But some nights, the city is quiet. There's just a low sort of hum from live wires and light traffic, rush hour come and gone. (There aren't any jobs in Amity Park that aren't some part of Vlad Co. these days, unless you count M-Corp., and it's tiny. And if the M isn't for Manson somehow, he'll eat his old shoes.)

It's soothing, a slow heavy pulse like a sleeping giant – not much of a giant, compared to some, compared to most, but it's his. He can hear his heart beat, fast so fast like a hummingbird's wings compared to the steady pace of the city echoing back at him.

He doesn't say any of this to Sam and Tucker. These nights aren't for work, aren't for wondering about the mysteries of the Ghost Zone and the Earth and which one do you think is going to come after us next. These too-short nights are for rest, for junk food and video games, messy hair and no makeup, corny puns and in-jokes all crammed into Danny and Tucker's crappy little apartment in downtown.

They'll make it, but until then, they will need these nights of rest, this small relief.

_We're all here, we're safe, we're alive, and we're not done yet._


End file.
